María Carmenza

Carmenza is known by her customers as an amiable and charismatic woman. She is 51 and has had her own stall for one year. She sells snacks, cigarettes, sweets, prepaid phone cards, and other things. Her stall is very well located, in the main park of her town. She gathered a lot of experience while working for several shops and grocery stores, so she has ample knowledge of being a saleswoman. She asks for a loan in order to buy merchandise wholesale (snacks, biscuits, sweets, and cigarettes, among others), as she wants to have a greater variety of products on offer to have as many varied customers as possible. Her aim is to increase her sales and her income so as to achieve her medium-term goal of setting up a grocery shop in a good location. Having a real shop would protect her from many risks she actually runs and would also be more profitable. Her dream is to give her family a better life.

Additional Information

Important Information

This loan is structured on Kiva as a bullet loan, which means a single payment is required at the end of the loan term. By Colombian law, Kiva's partner Interactuar is required to offer borrowers loans with a variable interest rate that fluctuates with the market rate. Because fixed monthly payments are applied first to interest and then to principal, Interactuar is unable to predict upfront what portion of each repayment would go towards the loan principal. This creates a challenge with Kiva's system, which doesn't allow for unpredictable principal payments, and can result in some Interactuar clients appearing falsely delinquent. To remedy this, the loan has an end-of-term repayment plan on Kiva, but the borrower will continue scheduled monthly repayments to Interactuar, who will then pass along the principal amount to Kiva lenders. This means that you may see repayments made on this loan throughout the repayment term, as opposed to receiving repayment in full at the end of the loan term.